The case involving Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s deceased wife Sunanda Pushkar took a new twist yesterday after Delhi Police filed a charge sheet against him in a Delhi court accusing him of cruelty towards her and abetting her suicide.

Four years after Pushkar was found dead in Delhi’s Leela Palace Hotel, the police’s 3,000-page charge sheet says that Shashi Tharoor had portrayed cruelty towards her and had abetted her suicide. Consequently, he has been charged under Sections 306 and 498A of the Indian Penal Code.

When Pushkar’s death had first occurred four years ago, the police’s initial FIR in the case had mentioned murder (under Section 302 of IPC) as the probable cause. However, the new charge sheet filed in court says that she died because an overdose of antidepressant pills, and that she was driven to take this extreme step by her own husband.

Tharoor slammed Delhi Police for naming him as the primary accused immediately after this news surfaced. He said on Twitter that he has “taken note of this preposterous charge sheet” and that he intends to “contest it vigorously”. He even questioned the “methods and motivations” of the police in changing its stance of first giving him a clean chit six months ago and now suddenly declaring him as the primary accused.

Congress leaders backed Shashi Tharoor and referred to the charge sheet as an instance of vendetta politics being played out by the ruling BJP-led government of PM Narendra Modi. Following a barrage of reactions on social media, Tharoor also went on to proclaim that he would stay off Twitter for a while because “one encounters too much epicaricacy” here.